Prego at the Westin KL (revisited)

Saturday night dinner at Prego, our favorite Italian restaurant. Full review was in our previous visit, so this one is gonna be short and sweet.

When you go, ask for a table on the second floor overlooking the kitchen. There's just something special and addictive about watching the chefs whip up all the different dishes.


I decide on the Braised Lamb Shank in Saffron Risotto (MYR64.00). The meat is tender and well cooked, and the texture and taste of the Risotto complements it perfectly.


The darling has the Lasagne al Forno (Wood-fired oven-baked pasta, beef ragout and parmesan, MYR43.00). I thought it was decently good, but not particularly outstanding or delicious.


If you haven't yet visited Prego, it's highly recommended - and the prices are reasonable though, as long as you avoid the restaurant scam of charging you MYR24 for a bottle of still or sparkling water.

Bintang Seafood Palace - K-Club in Taman Melawati

The good thing about eating Chinese-style dinners in a group is that there's lots of different dishes to eat and take pictures of. But when I'm not the one ordering, I have no idea what the names of any of the dishes are. Or the price, ha ha.

Anyway the family made a trip to K-Club in Taman Melawati for a dinner & get together in Bintang Seafood Palace. Place is bright and cheery (pretty much all Chinese places are though), and quite tastefully decorated too.


We start off with Shark Fin soup. After the awesome shark fin I've tasted in Hong Kong, the shark fin in this bowl tastes suspiciously jelly-like. Wouldn't be surprised if it was fake shark fin.


Next on the menu is Peking Duck. I find it rather mediocre - the skin isn't crispy enough.


Steamed Emerald Fish - quite unique in that it comes steamed in a huge claypot, and not on a aluminium/metal serving plate. I have no idea what an Emerald Fish is. Overall this dish was quite nice.


Tofu. Close to, but not quite mah-boh-style. OK-lah


Some sort of vegetable. Yes I don't know what vege this is. Was also just OK.


Deep fried spring chicken. Again, decently done but nothing particularly special or creative.


The last dish can probably be classified as a "leftover." These are noodles and a soup made out of the duck meat from the Peking Duck dish. "Nothing special" seems to be a recurring theme thus far.


So overall, a decidedly average outing. Sorry, no price range available because I forgot to ask for the bill. If you live around the area this might be a decent place to go, but there are tons of better places to fill your stomach at.

Bintang Seafood Palace
K-Club (formerly known as Century Club)
Jalan Melawati 3, Taman Melawati,
53100 Kuala Lumpur

Villa Danieli - Fine Italian at Sheraton Imperial KL

To ward off the mid-week blues, the darling and I head to Sheraton Imperial to explore the much-talked-about Villa Danieli. Lots of good reviews out there on how good the food is, so we just had to try it for ourselves!

First impressions are awesome - this place is wonderfully decorated. Feels a notch above Prego and Favola in the 'classy' ladder - the entire restaurant is cozy and romantic. Even have live entertainment!


Shot of the darling sitting at the table, waiting for our food.


Central dining area - check out the murals near the ceiling! Perfect place decoration and ambience-wise to impress a date :)


Surprisingly, we don't get an assortment of bread as I expected, but instead a single loaf. No complaints though, the crust was nice and crispy white bread itself wonderfully soft and fluffy.


Being very careful not to over-stuff on the bread, we start off with the Crispy Calamari with tartare sauce and spicy tomato sauce (MYR35.00). I'll skip the Italian name because I don't think anybody reading this would actually understand any Italian ^_^. But anyway the batter is light and fluffy and yet crispy on the outside, but a tad bit mushy on the inside. Not bad, but I've had better elsewhere.


We decide to do pasta, starting off with Tagliolini with prawns and asparagus in rich shellfish bisque (MYR50.00). We're rather unimpressed by the dish. The prawns are big and oh-so-fresh, but the overall taste of the sauce it's in was a rather big miss.


The Ravioli 'Malfatti style' stuffed with prawns and potatoes with crab sauce (MYR50.00) makes up for the disappointment, being an absolutely delicious mix of chewy pasta and a gorgeous filling in a superb sauce. But (and it's a big But) the portion size is, in my opinion, ridiculously small. Even small-sized mouths will polish off this entire dish in 6 mouthfuls.


On to dessert! The Traditional Tiramisu (MYR28.00) is good, but not spectacular.


Our Melting Heart Chocolate Cake with Orange Sauce and Candy Orange Skin ($24.00) gets higher marks for creativity. I think orange goes perfect with chocolate, so this dessert was delicious! The melting chocolate in the middle was nicely bitter, which was more than compensated for by the sweetness of the candy orange skin.


Overall, the darling and I go home unimpressed. At MYR107 for 2 pax after taxes (and 50% SP discount), it wasn't exactly a cheap dinner, and the quality of the food was above average at best.

Worse still was the service - on a weeknight with barely a third of the restaurant occupied, we had to wait about 5 minutes at the entrance before a server even noticed us and brought us to our table - a theme recurring throughout the night as we had fairly long waits between courses, meals, getting the bill, etc.

5 big stars for the superb ambience, only 3 stars for the food.

Prime at Le Meridien KL - Trip #2

New blogpost for a new month! Will be a short and sweet one. Our second visit to Prime we decide to go for appetizers instead of soup and settle for Australian crab cakes, chili flakes, garlic sauce and mango salsa (MYR55.00).


Verdict? Absolutely delicious! The crab cakes are the perfect blend of crispy on the outside, and moist and delicious on the inside. The mango salsa provides a great-tasting garnish, and the sauce complements the crab cakes well.


For our main courses we stick to Australian Black Angus - 200 days Grain Fed Rib-Eye. 12oz/340g (MYR160.00) for me ...


... and 8oz/220g (MYR120.00) for the darling. No sauces, just fresh ground black pepper. Absolutely heavenly.


Steaks are always best eaten medium or medium-rare - if you eat it any more cooked than this then you're missing out on the flavor and juices of the beef!


MYR192.00 for two (after SP discount) seems steep, but it really is very worth it - Prime is by far and away the best steakhouse in Malaysia.

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Prime at Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur.